Free Cold Hit by Stephen J. Cannell

from the Fingertip case, it put the killings back on a two-week clock.
    I exited the 101 at Desoto. Old haunts beckoned me--bars and liquor stores where I'd once tried t o e liminate the hollow feeling inside myself by drowning the ache with booze.
    Being back in this part of the West Valley put me emotionally closer to Zack. I had a weird flashback Zack and I were on the mid-watch and had just heard a SHOTS FIRED OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE call on th e s canner. We raced to the scene, breaking red lights, going Code Two. Zack always chased adrenaline rides, always made a tire-smoking run at any Shots Fired situation. I was drunk in the passenger seat and the wild ride made me sick.
    We hit the call ahead of the designated unit and Zack took off running into the apartment, leaving me sitting in our unit, still nauseous and dizzy. I remembered hearing gunfire inside the apartment and stumbled out of the patrol car, fumbling for my weapon. I dropped it in the flowing gutter water and fell in face first after it. While I fished for my pistol in the sewer drain, Zack was in a deadly shootout, dropped two assholes, both with long yellow sheets, and saved a wounded officer. He also kept me away from our watch commander, sending me back to the station with another officer before our field supervisor arrived on the scene. At the time, I'd been grateful. But now I was confused. Were these rages I was witnessing now, a new development, or had Zack always had them? Was I the perfect partner for a cop prone to violence--too useless to even be a witness? I didn't know. My memory of that period was an alcoholic haze.
    By the time I arrived at the address in Canoga Park , the crime scene was already filling up with news teams and looky-loos. Zack was not on the scene. This time I decided not to wait for him. I had a hunch he would be a no-show. A lot of civilians and neighborhood kids were milling around near the edge of the concrete levee. Fortunately, there were enough cops this time to hold them back.
    I located the officer in charge; a forty-year-old sergeant with blond hair, a Wyatt Earp stash, and three service stripes--nine years on the job. His nameplate read: P. RUCKER.
    "Come on, we got a trail marked over here," Rucker said.
    I followed him along the lip of the embankment while news crews tracked us from across the street and shot our progress. Rucker led me down through tangled sage, old McDonald's cups and Burger King boxes, into the concrete riverbed. There were three young cops standing near the body. Ray Tsu was already leaning over the guest of honor looking at the wounds, but was waiting to move him until I got there. A ratty old blanket, which probably belonged to the victim, covered the corpse's face.
    "Thanks for waiting," I said.
    Ray nodded and lifted the blanket. This vic, like all the others, was mid-fifties to mid-sixties, and had been shot in the temple. The bullet was gone--another through and through. I kneeled down and studied the body. He was bald, sun-weathered, and dressed in rags. His teeth were a tobacco-stained mess. I name d h im Quimby--a comedy name, but I was getting frustrated.
    "John Doe Number Five," Ray said, looking up at me. "No wallet. Somebody in those apartments probably called it in. Anonymous call, so we don't have a respondent."
    "Let's clear this crowd of uniforms out," I said to Rucker, not wanting any of the cops to see the symbol if there was one. Rucker moved the officers away while Ray and I kneeled down on opposite sides of the body and pulled up his ratty shirt.
    The now-familiar emblem was carved crudely on his chest.
    An hour later we were ready to carry the deceased up to the coroner's wagon. I was up on the street wondering where my partner was, when I heard a voice behind me.
    "Detective?"
    I turned to see a young patrolman whose nameplate read: OFFICER F. MELLON.
    "Yes?"
    "I think I might know this guy."
    I pulled him away from the swarming press and walked him fifty yards up to